travel

Loose-Leash Encounters

 in camping / travel / Wildlife/animals by

    High in the Sawtooth Mountains, my Molly mutt charged into a small valley. Through the trees, I glimpsed the creature she’d spotted. It was a little bigger than Molly, dark, and slow. Bear cub? The glance I’d gotten had left a calf shaped impression, but rough-cut, like a Gumby character. Bear or bovine, that critter’s mama was not going to stand for this. I shouted with little hope. I knew that Molly was too excited to hear me, and that my lumbering pace would make me a fine target for that mama’s wrath. This sort of situation is […]

Have You Seen the Painted Ladies?

 in Colorado / travel / Wildlife/animals by

     “The painted ladies are migrating.”        Puzzled looks prompted our biology teacher to describe the butterflies he’d noticed.        Sure enough, as I drove home that afternoon, I glimpsed a smallish orange and black butterfly wafting along. Then a few more and a few more, all fluttering north. Unreal! As a lifelong Puebloan, I’d lived in the path of the great painted lady migration for 35 years and never noticed. That evening, I shared the news with my mother. She’d seen no signs of a butterfly migration in her area of Colorado’s Grand Valley. […]

Who’s the Helper in Helper, Utah?

 in camping / travel by

Why did the folks in Helper, Utah choose that name? Knowing that Utah is predominantly Morman, I thought of a Morman friend who once told me that she was happy to watch my little ones on our moving day because God rewarded her good deeds with blessings. So, maybe the town fathers chose the name to promote neighborly cooperation? No, according to a historical marker, Helper began as a railway stop where extra (helper) engines were added to power coal trains over the mountain. In any case, Helper is a well-kept, welcoming community. I was impressed to see an antique […]

Canyoneering in Iceland Inspires! 2

 in Iceland / Inspiration / travel  tagged canyoneering / hiking / Iceland / inspiration / Nauthusagil / scenery / slot canyon / travel / waterfalls by

Our Icelandic self-driving tour book described, “a little water adventure:…by walking carefully on rocks in a stream, you can avoid getting your feet wet and see a waterfall.” Yes! I steadied my rickety knees with a hiking stick and tackled the rocks. Falling into the shallow stream wouldn’t have killed me. I’d likely have been hurt though, so I struggled along testing every step, setting my stick, grappling the canyon wall for grips, stopping to revel in the beauty. The canyon walls soon narrowed to a slot with scenery so gorgeous I groaned. Passing hikers warned that the rocks ahead […]

Mystery in the Mud

 in Arizona / Snowbirding / travel / Wildlife/animals  tagged camping / desert / donkeys / Imperial Dam / Senator Wash / tracks / travel / Yuma Arizona by

Outside Yuma, Arizona—not far from the Mexican border—my husband and I got lucky in finding a dispersed camping spot along the Senator Wash lake front. The reservoir water level had receded, leaving extra beach space, and I spent hours soaking in the view while walking a swath of dried lakebed. Strangely, the mud had dried into zillions of baseball size pockmarks. I wondered if some special property of the soil caused it to dry with depressions. Had some aquatic species somehow excavated indentations? Too small for people tracks…dog, coyote, bobcat, deer? Maybe, but probably too small, and anyway, that many […]